


the heart is slow to learn

by silentdroplets



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pre-Canon, Angst, Childhood, F/M, Pre-Canon, Sad Katsuki Yuuri, Why Did I Write This?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-20
Updated: 2017-06-20
Packaged: 2018-11-16 10:10:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11250984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silentdroplets/pseuds/silentdroplets
Summary: Yuuri loves Yuuko. He truly does.Until he learns that attachment is fleeting. His heart doesn't cooperate as quickly, however, and he is crushed by the weight of it.or,the fic where Yuuri gets his first heartbreak - the foundation of the solid cage around his heart.





	the heart is slow to learn

Figure skating is, to be honest, something Yuuri’s younger self would never have thought of doing. The sting of the cold on his skin would have been enough to drive his six year old self running out of the rink in search of a warmer place and bundles upon bundles of tiny kids' jackets. People who knew him would say that he’s the son of a hot spring inn’s owner, that he’s more than familiar with the wisps of warm mist rising from the water and wouldn’t have dared to step near the cold any time of the year.

 

He’d rather spend time in Minako’s ballet studio, really - the heaters there are so much warmer than the frozen core of ice in the rink. He would spend all his free time in the room stretching, pulling at muscles and practicing ballet. It felt like his body was free to move every and anywhere through this quiet, graceful dance.

 

Yet, when a young, bubbly girl - vastly different from Yuuri’s quiet, reserved self - and a taller, burly boy drags his ten year old self to the rink after school one day, he finds himself smiling throughout the skating.

 

He watches Yuuko glide around effortlessly and, ever so carefully, lets go of the railings and tries to follow her. He succeeds.

 

“Wow, Yuuri-kun, you’re a natural!” she shouts from the middle of the ice where she stands, clapping and smiling at Yuuri when he pushes forth with each kick, slicing through the ice with the blades of his dented rental skates. He grins back, about to jump forth to hug Yuuko in triumph, when Takeshi rams himself into Yuuri and he tumbles to the side.

 

“Ha,  _squirt_ ,” he taunts, skating circles around him and spraying bits of ice into his face when he tries to get up. “You’ll never become as good as us!”

 

Then Takeshi’s shoved away and Yuuko extends an arm towards Yuuri. “Don’t listen to him,” she tells him and pulls him up. “He’s a big meanie.”

 

“Hey!”

 

His hand hurts from the impact on the ice, his face stings from the melting ice and his pants are positively soaked up to his butt, but he smiles.

 

When Yuuko visits the ice, he comes, too.

 

When Yuuko goes to eat spicy omelettes stuffed with fragrant beads of rice and meat, he goes, too, even if he doesn’t like the smell of the herbs in his egg.

 

When Yuuko helps him up from yet another of Takeshi’s ruthless shoves, his heart skips and he feels himself growing attached to the girl.

 

_I love her a lot,_  his heart tells him, and he says, okay.  _I hope we can be together,_  his heart tells him, and he nods in approval.  _I want to be close to her, his heart tells him,_  and he responds with a murmur of agreement.

 

Later, when he grows keen to know more about the mysterious Russian skater with long, silver hair dancing across the ice, he notices Yuuko whispering things to Takeshi.

 

“He’s so cute,” he overhears her say. “I wonder if he’s going to try to be like Viktor-san and become a cool skater!”

 

_I’ll do it for you_ , his heart tells him to think, so he thinks it. He believes it. He’ll do it.

 

His parents get him skates for his eleventh birthday, and he is absolutely crazy over them, parents and skates alike. He embraces them both and whispers frantic thank yous and tries them on, slotting the blades in their skate guards and walking around the inn. He doesn’t take them off till bedtime.

 

His sister laughs at him when he slides his skates into his schoolbag the next day.

 

“Are you going to show off your new skates today?” she teases, a knowing look in her eyes. Yuuri shifts about and blushes.

 

“Well, I-I want to show Yuuko!” he blurts out, and Mari grins and ruffles his hair fondly.

 

The rink is cold, as usual, but his heart is aflutter and aflame when he slips his feet into the shiny, black skates and removes the guards that enclose the blades beneath his feet. He feels proud, for once in his life. All his insecurities melt away in the heat of his burning heart.

 

He swears it’s charring itself to a crisp when Yuuko skates by and notices the sleek new skates in place of scuffed bright blue rental ones that have been worn out by inexperienced ones shuffling along the ice.

 

“Wow, your skates look just like Viktor’s!” she exclaims, bending down to examine them. “They’re beautiful!"

 

Yuuko pronounces “Viktor” in this really cute accented way, like “Bi-ku-toru”, and he learns to speak his name like that too. It rolls off his tongue like an affectionate nickname, like a secret that he and Yuuko share, even if it’s spoken for everyone to hear.

 

His heart leaps every time their fingers touch when she helps him up from the ice. His heart somehow misses the way Takeshi would push him down so that Yuuko could help him up. His heart races every time she comes close and closes the space between them, hugging him in glee and laughing into his ear.

 

He gradually becomes interested in the articles they publish about Viktor and buys magazines just to share with Yuuko. She smiles and thanks him each time. He grins back with a small blush tinted across his cheeks.

 

They watch the programs Viktor skates from a tiny little box at her house and he is mesmerised by the smooth flow of his hair each time he leaps to the air and twirls, awestruck at his careful execution of his step sequence, engrossed in the way the blades of his skates slice across fine ice and lets loose a little sound - a sound that he is in love with. His heart agrees.

 

When he’s thirteen, he buys a poodle, its brown curls tickling his cheeks as he hugs him close and calls him Vicchan. Vicchan looks like Makkachin - a big poodle Viktor loves with all his heart and has taken part in many photoshoots with. He has a poster of them pasted on his wall. He doesn’t need to wish for a dog like Viktor’s, anymore.

 

Yuuko laughs at his big, round eyes and ruffles Vicchan’s fur. “You’re really a big fan of Viktor, aren’t you?” He nods. He loves it when she laughs. It’s another sound he is in love with. His heart agrees, too.

 

One day, when he’s fourteen, he finds that he can land a single jump - his very first jump, and to say that he’s delighted is somewhat of an understatement. Somewhat, because he knows Viktor the Legend - with a trademark symbol because the word “legend” belongs to him - could land a  _triple_ axel beautifully around his age. An understatement, because he knows jumps are incredibly difficult and he’s already accomplished one on the ice and he’s more than just  _delighted_.

 

He slams his skate guards on and runs to the benches on the other side, racing to the locker room. His heart is hammering against his ribs and it cracks with every breath he takes - breaking through his old, clumsy form and revealing the new, graceful being he has taken on.

 

“Yuu-chan!” he shouts as he bursts into the room. “I did a jump on the ice, just like Viktor-“

 

He stops short when his eyes focus on what exactly is in front of him.

 

Takeshi and Yuuko are in each other’s embrace, their lips locked in a tentative kiss, and when they hear Yuuri rushing into the room they snap apart like a rubber band - but in the end, they are still a band connected together, and there is no mistaking the blush on both their cheeks.

 

“Oh, uh- Wow, good job, Yuuri-kun!” Yuuko stammers, bringing out her signature smile - that smile which would have once made Yuuri’s mind race like it’s about to combust. Instead, his heart jumps while his head goes blank. It strikes an imbalance in him. A wave of nausea rises in him.

 

“I-I think I’ll leave,” he manages to get out without throwing up all over them, and rushes back to the ice.

 

_What’s wrong_ , his heart asks him. It urges him to turn back and talk to the person it is attached to most, but he summons all his strength and willpower to continue pressing on, ignores the drag in his feet that his heart has put there - shackles around his ankles, he realises, with chains that are bound to the person he loves.

 

He tries to tug them away.

 

“No, stop it,” he tells his heart, trying desperately to find a key in it - the key that could unlock the chains tying him there. It refuses.

 

_Why, it asks. You love her. Go find her._

 

“She loves someone else, I can’t do this!”

 

_She doesn’t deserve Takeshi - that boy is too arrogant and pushy for his own good. Go, find her and claim her as your own._

 

He can’t believe what his heart is telling him to do. Most of the time, it’s rational and calm, and also the only source of bursts of adrenaline when he does laps around the rink, but it isn’t usually like this.

 

“I can’t force her to stop loving and start developing feelings for someone else,” he tries one more time to shut his heart up, to stop harbouring those thoughts and cast those feelings away because his mind knows, it knows too well, that no one could possibly love him.

 

He finds his old skin - that careless, clumsy self - and tries to hide in it, fit himself in it so that he could feel at ease, at least. He could hide his transformation from others - the transformation that he’s done just for someone he loves.

 

_Fine_ , it growls and pounds angrily at his ribs. He sighs.

 

_I won’t throw those feelings away, though, because there’s always a possibility, right?_

 

He knows his heart is telling him nonsense. Yet, every time he sees Yuuko linking fingers with Takeshi, he can’t seem to stop the turmoil of emotions that are rising within him, bubbling under his skin and forcing his old shell to crack and peel away. He can’t stop his heart from pumping out waves of nauseating jealousy, nor can he stop his heart from yearning and pining.

 

So, he devotes himself to skating. He throws himself to the ice and lays his feelings bare on the freezing surface.

 

Because that’s where his heart finally shuts up about those feelings that never seem to stop coming in waves, and that’s where it can give him the race of adrenaline he feels in every inch of his muscles.

 

He throws himself into skating, visits the ice nearly every day, even when Yuuko’s not there. He tries not to think about it. He avoids her in school, tries his damnest to not make eye contact with her, because he knows if he does his heart would be set aflame once again and he does not want that.

 

He throws himself into skating and requests, ever so quietly, to his parents for a coach to teach him the proper ways of figure skating.

 

He throws himself into ballet and does more pirouettes even if it makes his toes sore and head dizzy. He does glissades and jetés and piqués and sissonnes, both formeé and ouvert, trying his best to maintain his form so he’s able to perfect those double jumps his coach is teaching him to execute.

 

He throws away that old skin of chubbiness and clumsiness and cuteness. He peels off remnants of emotion that his heart has left on his form and shows off the glowing self underneath everything. He has to change, he tells his heart. It is reluctant, but sheds the remaining shell all the same.

 

One day, he’s walking back home for lunch before he goes for his skating lessons when Yuuko runs up to him.

 

“Hey, Yuuri-kun!” she calls, grabbing onto his arm and smiling. “Takeshi and I are going to eat at Nagahama Ramen, want to join us?”

 

Takeshi appears behind her. “Katsuki-san, it’s been ages since we’ve even talked, why not let’s catch up over some lunch, right?”

 

Yuuri’s bag suddenly seems heavier than before and he feels like he’s about to collapse into a sinkhole beneath him. "Not now," he hisses internally.

 

His heart ignores his vitriolic tone and speaks up.

 

“S-Sure,” he murmurs and wishes he hadn’t.

 

The three of them walk to the little store together and Yuuri feels like throwing up again when he catches sight of them holding hands and exchanging loving looks. "No, we’re just friends, they can do whatever they like," he tells his heart, but it absolutely refuses to listen and sets itself on fire once again. 

 

They sit together at the bar where the owner boils pots of bubbling broth and stirs big pans of buckwheat noodles.

 

“So, how’s your ice skating going?” Yuuko pipes up as she sets down the piece of paper that is the menu. Yuuri forces himself to think that the shop should really change their menus to something more durable. He laughs drily.

 

“It’s- It’s going  _fine_ ,” he gabbles, holding up the menu to the both of them. “Hey, don’t you think the menu’s flimsy here?”

 

“Don’t try to change the subject, Katsuki-san,” Takeshi intercepts and laughs, taking the paper from his fingers and setting it down. “What’s up? It feels like it’s been quite some time since we’ve actually talked together.”

 

Technically, it’s been three weeks of pure agony and the building up of immense willpower in order not to collapse throughout the entirety of school, not _just_ “quite some time”, but he nods all the same.

 

“Well, I, uh- Ice skating’s been fine, I guess?” he tries. Yuuko looks at him encouragingly.

 

One of the staff passes them three glasses of cold water. Yuuri thanks him on their behalf and begins sipping his water. It feels cold running down his throat and he thinks that it feels much like the ice he lies on whenever he falls. A freezing punishment for his mistakes in his spins and jumps. Just like the punishment he’s facing now, staring at the two beside him.

 

“What about school? Anyone catching your eye?” Takeshi asks.

 

“No, Yuuri-kun wouldn’t like anyone else besides Viktor, right?” she replies and laughs.

 

_Anyone but you_ , he allows himself to think bitterly. His heart thumps in approval at his acknowledgement of his attachment.

 

“Yeah, right,” he laughs along, feeling his heart promptly jackhammering in its place, rejecting that statement. He hisses at it to stay quiet.

 

“Well, did you know that we’re a couple now?” the other boy declares. Yuuri chokes on his water.

 

“Why, aren’t you happy with us?” Takeshi teases, and Yuuri has to muster up each and every ounce of that willpower he’s built up throughout the time they’ve been apart to shake his head and laugh again.

 

“No, of course I’m glad!” he lies, wiping water off his face. “I’m so happy you guys found love with each other.”

 

They smile and hold each other’s hands.

 

Their bowls of steaming ramen are set in front of them, and even with the extra seaweed sprinkled on the broth and meat sneaked into the bowl, he finds that he cannot enjoy anything at all. He allows himself a glance towards the both of them and wishes he hadn’t. His heart protests.

 

Sometimes, he doesn’t know why his heart is feeling so upset. Yuuko still loves him as a friend, right? Is that not enough?

 

_No_ , his heart shouts,  _it isn’t enough._

 

Soon after that lunch, he goes to the ice more often than usual. The ice embraces him, allows him to lay forth all his emotions, even if he doesn’t feel like doing so off the rink. It’s like his second home.

 

He throws himself into the ice more often than usual.

 

He allows the ice to envelop every part of him.

 

He allows the ice to encase his heart.

 

It needs to quieten, anyway.

 

It dies just a bit more.

 

The next time he sees Takeshi and Yuuko, they’re linking hands and whispering endearingly to each other. They feed each other takoyaki with sprinkles of flaky seaweed and laugh together at the show that’s playing on the central television in their school.

 

His heart yearns to break through and protest, but the ice stays loyal and firm. He smiles at them, empty and unpromising, and walks away.

 

———

 

Yuuko and Takeshi find a job at Hasetsu Ice Castle, the rink where Yuuri frequents every day, when they decide that they should save up for their future together. Yuuri wants to throw up at that statement, but ice that has seeped into his heart has distanced him from everyone so much that he feels just a bit lonely, so he’s just happy for the fact that he can see his friends every day after school.

 

Yuuko watches him from the sides and cheers for him when he lands a double Lutz.

 

“Aren’t you going to continue skating, Yu-chan?” he asks her when he finishes practice and slips on his skate guards.

 

“Well, I can’t afford to skate now that I’ve got studies to pursue and a family to look forward to,” she says, passing him his training bag. “But I really love the ice and working at the rink seems like a good choice for a job!”

 

He smiles and nods in understanding, taking the bag and setting it beside him on the bench. “At least you get to be near the ice.”

 

“Exactly!”

 

Takeshi emerges from the locker room with an armful of blue skates. “I’ve got the skates polished and new again!” he calls, dumping them all on the empty space next to Yuuri. “Now we’ll have to wait for the people to start kicking holes in them next!”

 

They all chuckle, and one day, when Yuuri opens the mailbox to cradle that letter in his hands, his heart finally breaks free of its stubbornness and it has learnt. It pulses with the indifference he has tried so hard to train into it, and there is no more longing for the girl he had admired for years on end.

 

He walks off to the escalators, smiling at his family and waving at Yuuko and Takeshi, and wishes them the best with their triplets in her womb.

 

Then he leaves.

**Author's Note:**

> in the future, Yuuri meets many people. they harm his heart more than he wishes and he locks it up. finally, his heart learns. it doesn't open up to anyone that easily any more.
> 
> it learns at a bad time, though, because Viktor Nikiforov pops up and Yuuri doesn't know how to deal with it.
> 
> they work it out, eventually.
> 
> \---
> 
> thank you so much for reading!! this was meant to be the 20k word fic i was planning on but then i realised that the plot was really horrible, so i ditched it and decided to publish whatever salvageable content was already written.
> 
> comments make me scream ;D have a nice day!


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